Ghost Ship

        The term “Ghost Ship” is one that I use to metaphorically describe any organization that appears to be real, that appears to be strong and solid, but in actuality isn’t there; it’s existence is an illusion. From the outside looking in, it looks like a real, healthy vessel. But if you examine it closely, or if you get on the ship, the truth reveals itself to you. And it’s an ugly truth.
         Most of us have some experience with this sort of system, be it a dysfunctional family, or a poorly managed place of employment, or a badly coached sports team. All three appear to serve various functions, like love, support, community, service, or achievement. And on a very superficial level, they most likely do (even the worst run sports team on the planet gets out there and plays). But just below the surface, things break down completely. The family, or the company, or the team, is just a facade.
         Imagine being out on the ocean, and seeing what appears to be a ship sailing beside you. From this distance, it looks like a great ship. It looks real. So you make your way over to it and hop on board. Now you’re on the ship. Now you’re in it. At first, all appears normal, even wonderful. But if you’re paying attention, you slowly realize that things are very different here. The ship itself has disappeared. You find yourself in a sort of nether-world where nothing makes sense, and the rules of the world don’t apply here. When you’re part of the Ghost Ship, you find that it operates by it’s own set of laws that have nothing to do with reality. That have nothing to do with truth or integrity or honesty. The Ghost Ship is it’s own completely self contained entity. It’s own, totally fucked up, completely self contained entity.
         My own experience with a Ghost Ship lead me to beg, borrow, and steal from my own sense of self in a futile attempt to make the ship real. To turn the phantom into an actual living, breathing, feeling, compassionate, loving, evolving entity. But the Ghost Ship doesn’t want to change, so I can’t change it. So I don’t try anymore. I put the energy into making myself a better person instead of trying to make something unreal real.
         My personal observations, and they are strictly mine, regarding my experience with a particular Ghost Ship are what follow....

        On the Ghost Ship, Truth is merely a commodity. It is bought and sold, traded and bartered for, depending on the whims and wishes of the buyers and sellers. On the Ghost Ship, Truth has no intrinsic worth. It’s value fluctuates and changes depending on what other commodity Truth is being sold for:usually Money or Power. So Truth has no value. But Lies are priceless.
         Lies become the gold standard. The more valuable the prize, the more valuable the Lie. And a Valuable Lie takes great effort and skill to create and sell and maintain. And the Lie becomes the “truth”. And this “truth” has value.
         To accomplish this, the Liar must work very hard and put lots of energy into lying. Good deception, is, after all, hard work. The Liar must possess certain skills and attributes. The Liar must remove self examination, self awareness, and introspection. The Liar must not accept any inconvenient facts. The Liar must delude themselves with an endless stream of rationalizations and excuses. The Liar must constantly blame somebody else for their own problems and never take responsibility for their own shortcomings or mistakes. The Liar must endlessly spin reality to always put themselves in the right. The Liar must constantly re-write history in any way that best serves their shifting and all consuming agenda.
         Above all, the Liar can not appear to be lying. The most important thing for the Liar is that they appear to be telling the truth. If they are really good at that, then they actually believe their own lies and the process becomes much easier for them. Effortless really. And then they can lie forever. And it’s easy to stay on the Ghost Ship. The Ghost Ship becomes home. And the illusions of the Ghost Ship become real. And when that happens, they are lost. They lose the ability to realize what they’re doing and how they’re doing it.
         What is your desire? More money? More control? More power? To hurt or punish someone? To assassinate someone’s character? Whatever you want, the right Lies, at the right price, carefully propagated, will get it for you. That is the way of the Ghost Ship.
         Like a dollar that’s worth 20 cents one minute and a pound of gold the next, Truth offers no stability, no benchmark, no standard from which to assert right from wrong, good from bad, fair from unfair, dream from nightmare, friend from foe, real from unreal, greed from altruism, cooperation from manipulation, scarcity from abundance. There is no objective Truth. There are no objective facts. Everything is subjective. Like a dream where the people change before your eyes from one moment to the next. Where the landscape is forever shifting. And as long as one stays on this Ghost Ship, the only way to function is to surrender to the madness; to accept the insanity. The only way to make sense of it is to have no sense.
         On the Ghost Ship, the only reality is that of the ship itself. There is no outside influence that can penetrate the thick wall of denial. There is nothing that can change it. Or influence it. Or help it. You see that the Ghost Ship is sick. The Ghost Ship is sinking. The only way to save yourself is to jump off. To abandon ship. To leap into the vast, churning ocean alone, and find whatever you need out in it. Because the ship holds nothing for you anymore. Nothing but Lies. And grief. And madness.


©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a Love Boat full of Wrongs) Reserved.

Fifty-Four-X Monster Stack

        We’ve all seen at least one of them. Some are cute and make us smile. Others evoke tears. Many do both. They’re commonplace at weddings as well as funerals. Sometimes you pay somebody else for it. Other times you do it yourself or ask a friend to help. Fifteen years ago, they were strictly the province of professionals. Now, thanks to the digital revolution, almost anybody can do one.
         I’m referring to The Photo Montage. Or as I like to think of them: The Personal Music Video.
         In case I’ve lost you, what I’m talking about is simply a short film that consists of photographs, and sometimes footage, put to music and edited together, usually with simple transitions from one photo to the next. They can run from a few minutes to almost an hour. At a wedding, the bride and groom will show one that displays pictures of the two of them throughout the course of their relationship, put to some of “their songs”. At milestone birthday parties, the guest of honor gets to watch all sorts of embarrassing shots of themselves when they were fat with braces, put to the rock ‘n’ roll music that they loved in high school.
         I like photo montages. When done correctly, they can be very moving, beautiful, artistic, creations that pay homage to the film’s subject. When done badly, they can be a train wreck. For everybody. Luckily, I haven’t seen many of those.
         I’ve done quite a few photo montages, both professionally and for the fun of it. I’ve even taught an adult education class on how to do them. Mine are usually different from what most people are used to. Some of that is because of my own “brand” of creativity. Some of that is because I’m a musician, and within the film I use music very differently than a non-musician would. And some of that is because of how I feel about this form of media and how I approach the process of creating it.
         Most people that do these types of films gather a bunch of photos, often times string them together chronologically, and lay some music underneath. I’m not knocking that. It works. But if you want to create something special, you have to take it to another level. I do. And so can you.
         I treat a photo montage like an MTV caliber Personal Music Video.
         A music video for a rock band is made to sell that band. Well I believe a photo montage should “sell” the person, or the couple, or whoever the film is made about. That means making creative choices that are designed to illicit very strong emotional responses from the audience without over-sentimentalizing. Specifically, I want to bring out the essence of that person and put it on the screen for all to see. My goal is to create something that helps the person feel great about themselves. I want them to absolutely love who they see on the screen. And to do that, I have to first love them. And I do. Whether I’ve met them or not.
         I spend many hours with photographs of the person the film is about. I spend hours looking at pictures of their friends and family, of listening to their favorite music, of hearing the stories behind the pictures from people they know. All of this allows me to get to know the person. And through that, I gradually grow, in a way, to love them. I’ve gone through this phenomenon with every photo montage I’ve ever done, and it’s a beautiful experience. It’s a connecting experience. It’s what I love most about doing them. If I already know the person, by the time I’m done, I feel even more connected to them. I love them ever more.
         Like painting a picture of somebody with images and sounds, I want to bring out what’s special about the person. I want to convey their unique self. I want to make them look good, and bring out their beauty, their sex appeal, their passion, their vulnerability, their....whatever. Whatever help makes them who they are. When I watch a good music video of a band, I come away loving that band. They’re sexy. They’re cool. They rock. They’re wild. They’re funny. They’re sensitive souls. Whatever and whoever they are, it gets communicated in a good music video. What I relate to is the essence of that band. Even if it’s a fabricated, marketing driven essence, in this context, it doesn’t really matter. It works. I’m connected to them. I identify with them, or with whatever they stand for.
         When I do this for a photo montage, it’s a little different in that I’m always going for what’s real. I’m trying to extract something I see in the person and present it, embellish it, and weave it in with the rest of them to create something that people can connect to. We all have everything in us. Some of it is just easier to see, easier to identify. If I wanted to create a film that painted an “unflattering” portrait of somebody, I would first connect to that in them that is “unflattering”. Say their selfishness. Or their greed. Or their temper. It’s all there. If I look hard enough, I’ll find it. It’s in all of us.
         But if I want to create a true MTV caliber Personal Music Video of the person, an homage to them that tells some kind of story, I focus on that which makes them who they are. All that beautiful stuff that’s uniquely theirs. That’s there too. So I look for it. And I find it.
         I encourage you to create a Personal Music Video for someone you love. Not the garden variety, simple photo montage kind, as nice as that may be. Give them something special. Give them a bona fide tribute to who they are.
         In the second part of this post, I’ll help you do that by sharing what I’ve learned and getting into some specifics.
         By the way, the title has absolutely nothing to do with what I wrote. It’s a play in football that sounds cool, and I wanted to use it as a title. Seemed as good a time as any.

©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and an MTV amount of Wrongs) Reserved.